High School Girls Basketball: St. Basil overtakes Gwynedd Mercy

LOWER GWYNEDD — If Tuesday was any indication of how St. Basil Academy’s season is going to go in the Catholic Academies League, Coach Terry Mancini has something to look forward to.

After a very new, very young team had more success than most thought they would have just one season ago, this year’s Panthers’ team has one more year of experience its best. And it shows.

Led by the shooting of junior Molly Greenberg, St. Basil won its third consecutive game to start the season and its first in league play following a 43-40 win over the Lady Monarchs in an AACA game played at Gwynedd Mercy Academy on Tuesday night.

Greenberg helped the Panthers (3-0, 1-0) to a quick start with seven points in the first quarter, and finished with 10 while helping St. Basil to the road victory.

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“Every game, we grow a day older and I think we had a real good game tonight,” Mancini said. “Every game is a learning experience for us and we have a deep bench and a lot of kids played tonight and made contributions, which is going to be a key for us all year.”

St. Basil got started early, as Greenberg hit a three on St. Basil’s first possession. The Panthers’ led 15-10 after the first quarter and never allowed GMA (1-3, 0-1) to take away that lead for the remainder of the contest.

“We had some freshmen who played good minutes tonight and everyone just contributed,” Mancini said. “We had some real good guard play and we got off to a good start tonight.”

The Lady Monarchs did manage to keep the game close in the second half, thanks to the play of freshman Bailey Greenberg and sophomore Emily Sullivan. Trailing by seven in the fourth, Sullivan hit a basket and was fouled and hit her free throw to cut the GMA deficit to only four points. Later in the quarter, a jumper by Greenberg got the Lady Monarchs to within two, at 38-36, the closest they had been since early in the game.

But every time GMA got back in it, St. Basil had an answer, most notably a three-pointer by Molly Greenberg to give the Panthers a little breathing room. The Lady Monarchs had a chance to tie the game, but had a three-pointer fall short with less than 30 seconds to go.

“In the first half, we hurt ourselves,” GMA coach Tim Kowalski said. “We turned the ball over 10-plus times and most of them were unforced. We let them get a nine-point lead and then we controlled the ball in the second half, but we ran out of time. We only had four turnovers then, but we need to figure out, as a young team, to learn to play that way for a full game.”

GMA, which lost four starters from last year’s team, as well as six seniors total, was led by Sullivan’s 14 points. Bailey Greenberg added 12 for the Lady Monarchs, while Erica DeCandido finished with nine. Sullivan and Greenberg scored a combined 13 points in the fourth quarter alone.

“We lost a lot of starters and seniors from last year’s team and early on, we’re just trying to figure out how to play basketball,” Kowalski said. “You can see the incredible athleticism that we have. We just have to learn to play a full game if you’re going to win this league.”

The Lady Monarchs will have another in-league test when they visit Villa Joseph Marie.